︎︎︎︎︎  ︎︎︎︎︎  ︎︎︎︎︎  ︎︎︎︎︎  ︎︎︎︎︎  ︎︎︎︎︎  ︎︎︎︎︎  ︎︎︎︎︎  ︎︎︎︎︎  ︎︎︎︎︎  ︎︎︎︎︎  ︎︎︎︎︎  ︎︎︎︎︎  ︎︎︎︎︎  

Rosa Menkman is a Dutch artist and researcher of resolutions with a special focus on glitches, resolutions, cyclopes 👁️, impossible rainbows 🌈,  unnamed colours 🎨 and IANA, the goddess of staircases 𓊍

In her work, she focuses on noise artifacts that result from accidents in both analogue and digital media that offer insights into their otherwise black boxed modes of operation. As a compendium to this research, she published the Glitch Moment/um (INC, 2011), a little book on the exploitation and popularization of glitch artifacts.

Menkman developed and highlighted the politics of resolution setting further in a second book titled Beyond Resolution (i.R.D., 2020). In this book, she describes how the standardization of resolutions is not only a process that promotes efficiency, order and functionality, but also involves compromises and the obfuscation of alternative possibilities.

In 2019 Menkman won the Collide, Arts at CERN Barcelona award, which inspired her recent research into what makes things im/possible. With a special focus on im/possible images. A research she is set to expand during her time at EPFL (Lausanne) at Enter the Hyper-Scientific (2023), where she researches alternative rainbows and unnamed colours. Through this research, Menkman aims to find new ways to understand, use and perceive through the use of, and interaction with, our technologies.

From 2010 - 2012 Rosa Menkman co-facilitated the GLI.TC/H festivals in both Chicago and Amsterdam and curated the Incompatible Aesthetics symposium of Transmediale (2012). Menkman has also been part of the curatorial team of Sonic Acts (2016-2017).

Between 2012-2014, Menkman curated four exhibitions that illuminated the different ecologies of glitch (art). In 2015 she initiated the institutions for Resolution Disputes [i.R.D.], a solo show at Transfer Gallery New York. The i.R.D. are institutions dedicated to researching the interests of anti-utopic, lost and unseen or simply "too good to be implemented" resolutions. As an undertone, the show featured a showcase of the different complexities in compression (dots, lines, wavelets, blocks and vectors). In follow up exhibitions, Behind White Shadows (2017) and Shadow Knowledge (2020) and Im/Possible Images (2021) Menkman developed and highlighted the politics of resolution setting further.

From 2018 - 2020 Menkman was substitute Professor Neue Medien & Visuelle Kommunikation at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. Class materials can be found here. In 2023 Menkman will run a resolution research lab at HEAD Geneve.

The Journey of my Protagonist: IANA, formerly known as The Angel of History

The "Angel of History,”(inspired by Paul Klee’s - century old - 1920 Angelus Novus - but in female form) is a recurrent motif in my work since the "Collapse of PAL" (live television performance, 2010). She symbolizes an evolving narrative intertwined through and within my life and practice. This figure, originating as a farewell gesture to the PAL signal, has transformed across different mediums, adopting roles that echo changing times and technological breakdowns on the cusp of advancement.

In "Xilitla" (3D interactive poetic environment, 2013), the Angel navigates a non-linear narrative about self-transformation marked by foretelling capabilities (‘I feel like I know her, but sometimes, her eyes bend back’), while climbing and falling from a spiralling Staircase to Nowhere.

The Angel is a witness in the journey of two DCT blocks (junior and senior) in "DCT:SYPHONING" (VR, 2017), where she observes the blocks transversing the Realms of Compression Complexities (dither, lines, blocks, wavelets and vectors). In the final chapter (level), the angel suggests a nonlinear path to decode knowledge: ‘knowledge spans over multiple dimensions. In knowledge, data moves not just northwards,’ while again, positioned next to the Staircase to Nowhere.  

A narrative escalation is written into "Pique Nique Pour Les Inconnues" (desktop video, 2020), in which the Angel orchestrates a collective performance of Paul McCartney's “We All Stand Together.” As she unites the lost and unacknowledged faces of image processing colour test cards. She also hints at a movement: “the DeCalibration Army” (non-quadrilateral prints, one of a kind archival prints that each come with an embedded AR video 2019 - ongoing)

In "The BLOB of im/possible images” (3D world with exhibition, 2021-2022), the Angel (again, positioned next to the Staircase to Nowhere, this time flanked by a map reminiscing the Realms of Compression Complexities) beckons visitors to venture into a Binary Large OBject, an allegory for the intersections between art, technology, and the realms of imagination.

In the "The Shredded Hologram Rose" (3D narrative, 2021-2023), inspired by the 1977 science fiction short story by William Gibson, IANA, a Media Archeologist from ‘100 Cycles into the Future’ comes home to her Hyper Yves Klein Blue-saturated cube. In the cube, she reflects on her day, which started in misery: she fractured her Hologram Rose. She describes her visit to the i.R.D. (institutions, 2015) "DeCalibration Target" (monumental landart installation, 2023) which she hopes will help her repair the Hologram Rose. On the walls of IANA’s cube hang posters documenting the Angel of History’s transformation from Paul Klees’ painting into a Cyclops, and finally, IANA.


Most of my (solo) shows came with  a publication:
︎ Order and Progress (2010) publication: Vernacular of File Formats
︎ i.R.D. (2015) publication: i.R.D.
︎ Behind White Shadows (2017) publication: BWS
︎ Shadow Knowledge (2020) publication: Beyond Resolution
︎ Im/Possible Images (2022) publication: Im/Possible Images Reader


RECENT ARTWORKS:
* A COLLECTION OF COLLECTIONS FOLDED INTO A LIBRARY (2023)
* JPEG FROM A VERNACULAR OF FILE FORMATS, (2009 - 2010), REVISITATION WITH HIDDEN MESSAGE IN DCT (2023)

* REFRACTIONS in Light and Time (2023)
WHITEOUT video documentary / performance (2020 - 2022)

* IM/POSSIBLE IMAGES reader, 3D work w/ video and exhibition (2021-2023)

* DE/CALIBRATION TARGET (2023)
* DE/CALIBRATION ARMY prints and video (2020)
* SHREDDED HOLOGRAM ROSE (2023)
* BEYOND RESOLUTION Book (2020)
* UNRESOLVED data painting (2020)


RECENT VIDEO LECTURES:
A Collection of Collections inside a Library for the INC (2023)
Resolution Studies Lecture for MIT (2021)
Destitute Vision Lecture for NCAD (2021)
It takes more than the past to understand the archive video essay for Stedelijk Studies (2020)


RECENT FACILITATION:
To be released: OUTLAND ART MAGAZINE ON GLITCH
NOT.GLI.TC/H (Chicago, April 1st 2023)
NFTs and their Impact on Art Creation, Curation, and Commerce (Kassel, 22-23 July 2022)
IM/POSSIBLE SUMMER SCHOOL (W/ Luzi Gross, Munich, 2021)
 

This website was made possible with the financial support of the Stimuleringsfonds.nl
I am grateful to have received a basis stipend from the Mondriaan Fund (2018-2021)
This site functions as a repository and portfolio of my artistic research.
Please <copy-it-right>

 






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